


The Eternal Cynic

by EntrancedCat



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 22:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21005459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntrancedCat/pseuds/EntrancedCat
Summary: Daria, Quinn, The Fashion Club, Characters of Many Worlds exist throughout the Multiverse.





	The Eternal Cynic

**Daria, The Eternal Cynic**

**CHAPTER ONE**

“My Queen, Daria,” Sandyss leaned over the Queen’s bed and gently shook her. “Time to like rise and shine and face the new day.”

Queen Daria groaned, stretched, sat up in bed and yawned. She waved aside the glass of cold water and the coof-derivative pills which Sandyss offered.

“Sandyss, you want me to take a couple of those things? I would be jumping at every noise all morning and jumping down your throat over nothings.”

“And that would be different how?” Sandyss smiled and held out a steaming mug. “You have negotiations with the Melnibonéan emissaries this morning, as you know my Queen, and I thought you would want to be like especially alert.”

Daria happily accepted the mug of hot coof with a dollop of fresh cream and honey. After taking slow sips she passed the mug back to Sandyss who placed it on a side table. Coof-derivative pills would be a quicker way to come awake but Queen Daria found that the tablets often put a jagged edge on her nerves and temper. Hot coof with cream and honey was a far more pleasant morning ritual than swallowing two pasty off-white tablets with cold water.

Queen Daria swung her feet out of bed and onto the deep fur rug. She stood and half-smiled at the tiny grimace Sandiss gave her sleep wear. Familiar in her attendant and friend’s presence, Daria scratched herself through the thin, short parody of men’s breeches which covered her loins. A blue mock tunic made of the same soft cotton as her quasi-breeches covered her from shoulders to just below her rear. She shuffled her feet enjoying the feel of her loose white stockings.

At first Queen Daria herself had found the getup strange but her sister, the Princess Kwynn, had seen Daria wearing the outlandish outfit in her visions and dreams were still important in the Land of Lawndulac, especially the visions of the Princess Kwynn.

Princess Kwynn had had several pairs made for her sister, once she had convinced her sister to sit still long enough for a fitting. All the tunics were emblazoned with the same man’s white-mustachioed face. Although heralds had carried a sample swatch the length and breadth of the realm they had found no one closely resembling the likeness.

“Melnibonéans,” Daria sighed and shuddered. “Just looking at those cold eyes gives me the chills. Sandyss, keep a pot of coof nearby and hot for me. Plenty of thick cream and honey too.”

“Of course, Daria. But you know increasing the coof trade with Melnibonéan would bring more of their lustrous fabric to Lawndulac.” Sandyss sighed. “It’s the absolute best in the world!”

Queen Daria arched her brow at her friend. “Is that right? Are you a secret Melnibonéan agent then, Sandyss? Meant to influence me over my morning coof?”

“Daria, my Queen,” Sandyss shuddered and placed a hand lightly on Daria’s arm. “Please do not joke with me like that! You know I would never betray you. And those like Melnibonéans! They remind me of my cat Fluffy when he dallies with a poor wounded songbird before killing and eating.”

Queen Daria patted her hand reassuringly. “Pour yourself a hot one, Sandyss Griffin-Rider although I bet you are a cup or two ahead of me. Well, let’s get the queenly robes on me and get the business of the day started governing the great realm with its occasionally grateful subjects.”

Sandyss smiled as Daria let herself be attired in a simple dress of green and black. The shorter Daria did not need to bow her head to allow Sandyss to put on her crown. Sandyss pursed her lips at the crown’s simplicity but made no comment.

Alone among the human kingdoms Lawndulac’s ruler wore a crown less ornate than any of her nobility. When she ascended to the throne, Daria, unintentionally and uncaring if anyone followed, started a trend for simple jewelry. It lasted until the aristocracy realized that she did not care about any of their humble bragging. Thereafter her nobles incongruously started a competition over who could wear the most ostentatious headpiece.

“Are you left or right handed today, Daria?”

“Eh, left, I think. That might give those hide-bound Melnibonéans a bit of a pause.”

Accordingly the last item Sandyss dressed her with was a custom-made sword belt with dagger and Daria’s preferred short sword. She helped her Queen adjust her dress to hang with the sword belt and Sandyss helped cover the Queen’s trim legs with knee-high soft black leather boots.

The people of Lawndulac were believers in the saw that the fertility of the land was related to that of the ruler. Teen Queen Daria was still too young to be pressured into marriage and motherhood so that belief took the form of embarrassing Daria their Queen by expecting her appearance at official duties while wearing very short and tight dresses.

Sandyss strung and carried Daria’s more favored weapon, a horn bow, a quiver with a dozen arrows belted at her waist. Daria glanced at her bow in Sandyss’ hands and quiver at her hip and sighed hoping to find time to shoot that day.

“Okay, I’m all got up and thank the White Lords I can now wear something under my skirt and still be an inspiration to my subjects to be fruitful and work the land.”

A firm knock sounded on the Queen’s chambers door. When Daria nodded assent Sandyss opened to admit Brittany Taylor, captain of Daria’s Praetorian Guard.

The three girls being friends Captain Brittany made only a minor obeisance to her Queen.

“Those wicked Pan Tang spies have been prepared all night for your interrogation, my Queen.” Captain Brittany informed her. She toyed with the long blonde braid hanging down her back and looked interested in the results of the night’s interrogation and her Queen’s responses to its findings.

Queen Daria sighed. “Right, we mustn’t keep the good Doctor Lord Ruttheimer waiting. The skilled doctor is likely anxious to show off a new interrogation technique.”

Before the trio left the Queen’s chambers, Queen Daria paused before her fireplace and stroked a tightly stoppered clear glass globe full of grey ash.

“I wish you were here, Friend Jane, to give me advice. Even hearing your joking at the Melnibonéans’ expense would set my mind at ease.”

Sandyss and Captain Brittany put hands on their friend’s shoulders until she turned away from the mantle and headed for the door.

The guards outside the Queen’s apartment came to attention smartly and struck their halberd butts on the floor sharply. Sandyss and the Captain suppressed their giggles as Queen Daria let out a startled, ‘Eap.”

“My Queen,” Captain Brittany said after she gave the men instructions. “You should be used to the attention by now.”

“And Captain Brittany,” Queen Daria returned. “You and your guard should get used to the times I see ahead. Perhaps with a few twenty-five strand hikes and a night or two in the hills during rainy season? Hhmm?”

With Captain Brittany leading and Sandyss by her side, Queen Daria exited her central keep into the courtyard of Castle Morgendorffer. The Queen let the sun and breeze play pleasantly with her auburn hair as she glanced about the lawn.

A moment later Sandyss placed her bow and an arrow in her hands following Daria’s gesture. Instinctively the Queen nocked, drew and loosed. The rat skewered by her green and black fletched arrow did not make a sound on its death.

Captain Brittany chuckled, “Roger the Mouse Lord will be pleased, my Queen, with the death of one of his enemies.”

“Take it to the kitchens,” Queen Daria commanded the servant who instantly appeared to clean up the rat and more importantly clean her arrow and give it back to Sandyss. “Do it up with that spicy sauce I like and bring it to the captives. We owe them one last good meal.”

Sandyss and Captain Brittany chuckled as they led the way to the out of the way interrogation room. Queen Daria found the dungeons depressing even for her. Upon her coronation she had the sub-sub-basement cells cleared out, cleaned and repurposed for wine storage. The few captives forgotten and languishing, ignored even by her gentle father, King Jakob the Fourth, were manumitted and assigned to such tasks as their often broken minds and spirits could tolerate, such as rat catcher and scullery attendant.

The trio heard the wet heavy smacks of supple thick leather striking living flesh before they entered the interrogation chamber. Light from the floor to ceiling windows shone of the backs of the three spies hung by their arms. Sweat on the bare backs and shoulders of each prisoner’s individual whip-wielder shone in the light. The golden light lent a festive sheen as well to the red stripes on the spies’ backs.

“Stand off,” Captain Brittany commanded. “Jeffereme, Joseferron, and uh, Jaimeson.”

“She remembered my name,” one guard crowed. “Captain Brittany remembered my name.”

“Clean up and complete your dress,” the Captain continued. “Then report back here for further orders. Take your time but don’t dally.”

“C’mon you goofs,” the emboldened Jaimeson said. “We’ve a chance to cast a few rolls of the dice to let you two try to win your losses back from me.”

Captain Brittany was about to upbraid them but Queen Daria held up her hand. She knew whipping was harder work than it looked to the novice.

Queen Daria approached the first and largest of the two male spies.

“Take care, My Liege,” a young man in a white smock cautioned. “That wretch spits. I fear even an all-night whipping has not beaten the feistiness from him.”

“Thank you, Doctor Chuckster,” The Queen acknowledged.

She stopped well out of sputum range and regarded the man hanging in chains in her palace interrogation room. She well knew that these three were likely the poorest of poor in Pan Tang and criminals condemned for some petty crime which their poverty had driven them to commit. They were promised redemption, honor and treasure if they could bring back Lawndulac’s secrets. Her father may have merely condemned them to hard penal servitude but Queen Daria was of the sterner stuff her mother had been made of.

“Information, Doctor Ruttheimer?”

“My Queen, my tongue loosening coof derivative pills and other potions corroborated by the more physical techniques of milady’s guards,” Dr. Ruttheimer made a slight bow to Captain Brittany. “Have yielded their motives.”

The young man assumed a somber tone, “Not only do they seek viable living coof berries to smuggle out but…”

“Pan Tang will conquer this poor worthless country,” The captive woman suddenly found the strength to scream.

“We will burn your villages. We will tear down this ragged palace.” Her companions found enough breath to yell.

The larger man locked eyes with Queen Daria. “Dumb, worthless playacting queen bitch…”

His tantrum was cut short by Sandyss striding forward and striking his teeth in with a short black cudgel she produced from her robes. Queen Daria glared at her as Sandyss stepped back and wiped the blood from her club. Sandyss smirked.

She did not like being called a ‘bitch’ but, imprecation or not, the Queen had wanted to hear what the wretch had to say.

‘Bitch Queen’ had been the favorite nickname given her by the noble and royal young ladies in the boarding school her parents had forced her to attend for a couple years. Lonely, the young Princess Daria had sought companionship with the friendly stable dogs and horses. That had earned her the nickname amid much unsavory implications of her relationship with the animals.

Ostensibly Miss. Li’s Finishing School was to teach young royals and nobility manners and customs but Queen Daria thought its real, unstated purpose was to give them practice in subterfuge, cunning and trivial intrigues. She knew that Lawndulac’s presence was tolerated only because the realm was the sole source of coof in the known world and Lawndulac was just too small and well-guarded for the larger nations to take notice of while enmeshed in their own larger plots and wars.

Doctor Ruttheimer waited for his Queen’s attention to return to the room before he continued, “My Queen Daria, it is as you may expect. They seek our viable coof berries to smuggle out and plant in their ill soil. Doubtless to yield a foul, vile roast but that is ever the intention of our envious neighbors. But my Queen, Pan Tang appears to be at a time of relative truce with its neighbors. Unable to smuggle coof berries they seek to conquer our brave, little country and take them and, uh, you, by force. They are amassing a force.”

Queen Daria waved her hand and turned to the captives. Her tone was icier than typical for her habitually pure, smooth, dry voice.

“You serve Tomas of Pan Tang’s House of Slowun? Don’t answer or risk a further beating, I can see it in your eyes. I will convey royal gossip now from the finishing schools of your betters. Tomas trifled with the heart and mind of Jane Laighean of the Horse-spear. When he tired of the play, she was nearly mad by then. I helped her regain composure and health. Rich, entitled boy thing took offense and tried his petty games with me. I hope his cheeks still feel the sting of my slaps after he demanded a kiss.”

The Queen sucked in her breath to continue, “Our country is small and never threatens our neighbors near or far. We only seek a fair price and open markets for our coof. My father, honored may he rest, lowered the price of our treasure even as he ever sought to increase its quality and potency.”

“You want our coof?” Queen Daria said colder even. “You three, uh, three J’s. We have had a bumper harvest this year, enough to waste a few berries on some fun. Take the finest berries and heat them almost to roasting. Keep them still viable, however. Stuff these wretches with what they desire. Nose, ears, each end and orifice full and fuller. After they expire plant them on the choicest hill on Morgendorffer Estate.”

“In a short year or so I shall relish,” the Queen again spoke to the prisoners. “Drinking the coof your bodies have the honor to nourish.”

“Doctor Chuckie, the Lord Ruttheimer.” Queen Daria addressed her red-haired subject. “I know that you are famous for your new methods of roasting and brewing coof and your derivative pills are becoming a lucrative trade item. For that your nation and Queen bestows its gratitude.”

She continued after the young Lord Ruttheimer bowed deeply in gratitude, “Your Queen also knows that you dabble, aye, more than dabble, in darker arts.”

“Say the word, My Lady Queen,” The young man became animated and gestured at a table of paint pots and brushes and sinister looking knives. “I will paint their bodies with such marks in paint and blood as the feisty lesser demons will be alerted to the passing of their souls through the nearer planes. They will be feasted on and gnawed until Time itself corrupts itself and ends.”

The three prisoners began to beg and plead then but silenced their pleas when Queen Daria raised her hand.

“No, my loyal, cunning Lord Ruttheimer. The Queen will take pity on them. I command you to mark their bodies with such marks as the demons will merely grant them safe passage through the closer worlds. I believe from what you have taught me that those marks are most effectively done in blood.”

She paid no further attention to the suddenly grateful words of the spies and turned to Captain Brittany and Sandyss. “Come, ladies, we will visit my sister before we see what trials and troubles the Melnibonéans seek to heap on us.”

She was happy to note the shock and fear in the spies’ eyes at the mere mention of denizens of the Dragon Isle of Melnibone.

“Oh yes,” Queen Daria said as a servant came in bearing a steaming tray. “Feed our friends well before their dessert of hot coof berries.”

**A/N: Melnibone and Pan Tang are places in the tales of author Michael Moorcock. The interrogation room scene is inspired by a similar scene in his ** ** _Elric of Melnibone. _ ** **Daria and related characters and places were created for MTV. I forgot which fanfiction writer gave the mouse from ** ** _The Lab Brat _ ** **the name ‘Roger’; may have been TAG. This Roger the Mouse Lord is named after that.**


End file.
